Electronic oases take root in Mr. Minow's vast wasteland.(television)

The famous "Vast Wasteland" speech that Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") Chairman Newt Minow delivered to a roomful of broadcast industry partisans in 1961 has influenced telecommunications policy, as well as perceptions of television itself. (1) Newt Minow's blunt assessment of the contemporary media fare offered by the marketplace, coupled with his stalwart defense of public interest telecommunications policy, captures the essence of many telecommunications policy debates today. Whether the subject is children's television, the E-rate, access to Internet content, labeling issues, alcohol advertising, or the general fights and obligations of FCC licensees, imbuing marketplace competitors with obligations addressing those societal needs that the marketplace fails to meet adequately is part and parcel of current debates in Congress and at the FCC.

Since 1961, public interest-based telecommunications policy has certainly had its high points and its setbacks. We have made some progress in populating the "wasteland" of the Minow FCC era with additional viewer choices of educational, cultural, and informational merit. Moreover, significant policy battles have resulted in a better articulation of the public interest obligations of recipients of FCC licenses and the public trust. Although advances have been made in certain areas, much of Newt Minow's public interest critique abides. In my view, the awesome power of our technological resources still has not been harnessed fully to meet the challenges facing society today.

PROGRESS SINCE THE 1960S

First, I want to discuss some of the progress that we have achieved in telecommunications policy since Newt Minow's speech. America has seen the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the development of the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. In my view, the nation's public broadcasting system stations are the brightest stars in our national constellation of viewing and listening choices. During the day, public television continues to meet the needs of children with hours and hours of educational programming, and at night it brings the adult audience unparalleled free over-the-air programming.

THE PROMOTION OF CABLE TELEVISION

In the 1970s and 1980s, Congress and the FCC facilitated the construction of the cable television infrastructure across the country through the 1978 enactment of pole attachment provisions to the Communications Act of 1934, (2) and the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984. (3) Cable television developed many highly prized consumer programming services for news and information, which included CNN and C-SPAN. Cable television also extended cultural, educational, and entertainment programming to viewers in the form of The History Channel, Lifetime, Discovery Channel, Black Entertainment Television, Oxygen, HBO, Showtime, and Bravo. That is not to say, obviously, that all cable programming is of an elevated or enlightened quality, but I believe that consumers welcome and continue to enjoy the array of programming choices cable offers, though they all too often pay excessive rates for the service.

CHILDREN'S TELEVISION ACT OF 1990

In the early 1980s, the Reagan FCC eliminated the children's television rules that obligated broadcasters to meet the educational and informational needs of the child audience. Congress twice responded with legislation to restore the rules. On the first occasion, my bill to reinstate the rules and to make service to children a condition of license renewal was approved by Congress only to be "pocket vetoed" by President Reagan in 1988. In the subsequent Congress, I again battled successfully for passage of the Children's Television Act (the Act), (4) which President Bush signed into law in 1990.

The Act put a cap on the number of advertising minutes that could be jammed into a half-hour of children's programming, and led to the adoption of the "Three 4 Kids" rule by the FCC, which obligates every broadcaster in the United States to provide no less than three hours of educational programming for children per week. (5) The FCC had proposed such rules, but not yet adopted them, when we successfully undertook to get more than 220 members of Congress from both parties to sign a letter requiring a three-hour minimum for all commercial broadcasters. (6) This letter, unveiled at the end of May 1996, broke the stalemate at the FCC. President Clinton then called for a "summit" in the White House on the subject of children's TV for the end of July 1996, and the "Three 4 Kids" rule was adopted shortly thereafter and became effective September 1, 1997. (7)

EXPANDING TELEVISION TECHNOLOGY TO REACH MORE AMERICANS

In 1990, Congress acted again to expand access to information resources for all Americans when it approved my bill to mandate the inclusion of closed-captioning technology in television sets sold in the United States. (8) This bill addressed the needs of the millions of deaf and hard-of-hearing citizens for whom much of televised news and information was inaccessible. Later, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 would include provisions to assist the blind community by promoting the use of video description technology. (9)

PROMOTING CABLE COMPETITION AND PUBLIC INTEREST SATELLITE SERVICE

In 1992, the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act (10) was enacted over President Bush's veto. As lead sponsor, I fought hard to make sure that the final bill contained a number of provisions to enhance competition and other public interest initiatives. It voided all exclusive cable franchises, and thus increased the prospects for head-to-head wireline competition. Moreover, it contained program access provisions making satellite competition a reality, as well as an important provision requiring direct-to-home satellite competitors to set aside capacity for noncommercial, nonprofit programming. (11) Today, this four percent "set-aside" brings educational seminars from universities and growing programming from sources such as WorldLink television to millions of satellite consumers. (12)

THE E-RATE PROGRAM FOR SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES

In 1994, part of the omnibus telecommunications legislation I drafted in the 103rd Congress contained the "E-rate" provision, obligating telecommunications carriers to extend service to schools, libraries, museums, and community colleges at discounted rates. (13) I coined the term "E-rate" as short for "education rate," to emphasize the fact that it was the educational needs of our nation that were historically underserved by our communications companies, and that such educational institutions could better serve their communities if connections to the information superhighway were as low-cost as possible.

My bill passed the House by a vote of 423-4 in June 1994. (14) Had Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) not threatened a filibuster in the last few weeks of that congressional session, effectively killing companion legislation authored by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC), we might have had the Telecommunications Act of 1994 instead of 1996. Yet when Congress did return in the next session, a bill emerged that included the E-rate and that was signed into law by President Clinton in February 1996. (15) As implemented by the Clinton FCC, the E-rate has become a $2.25 billion-per-year program that has helped to wire hundreds of thousands of schools and classrooms. (16)

THE V-CHIP AND TELEVISION CONTENT RATINGS

In 1996, Congress adopted my V-chip amendment to the Telecommunications Act and, as a result, all television sets with larger than thirteen-inch screens that are sold in the United States after January 1, 2000, contained a tool for parents who wished to program the TV set to block all programs that carry ratings indicating inappropriateness for small children. (17) I coined the term "V-chip" (the "V" stands for "violence") to help focus public attention on this technology's potential to block programming that a parent deemed too violent, sexually explicit, or profane without interfering with the First Amendment.

The usefulness of the chip, however, depended on the cooperation of the industry in developing a workable ratings system. Such a system emerged from negotiations between the industry, the National PTA, pediatricians, and others, and went into effect in fall 1997. Both the ratings system and the technical specifications for the V-chip were approved by the FCC in March 1998. (18)

THE "DOT KIDS" INTERNET INITIATIVE

Most recently, on December 4, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law legislation that would create an Internet subdomain for children. (19) As many parents today know, the Internet often appears to be a veritable jungle of Web sites. When a child logs on to search for games, stories, or educational material, search engines often turn up pages laden with pornography, violence, or other content that is simply not appropriate for young children. Under the auspices of the contract given to a private company to run America's Internet country code, .us ("dot U.S."), Congress requires the Department of Commerce to require the designation of a .kids ("dot kids") domain, where content would be available that is appropriate for children twelve years of age and younger.

The Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act directs the Department of Commerce, through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to accelerate the creation of a "dot kids" domain by making it a secondary domain under our nation's country code top-level domain, which is "dot U.S." (20) The proposed "dot kids" domain will be a cyberspace sanctuary for content that is suitable for kids and will be an area devoid of content that is harmful to minors.

This approach departs from previous congressional activity in this policy area because the new law will not subject all Internet communications to a "harmful to minors" standard. (21) As such, the "dot kids" proposal is not aimed at censoring Internet content per se. Rather, it is crafted to help organize content more appropriate for kids in a safe and secure cyberzone, where the risk of young children clicking outside that zone to unsuitable content, or being preyed upon or exploited by adults posing as kids, is vastly diminished. Organizing kid-friendly content in this manner will enhance the effectiveness of filtering software and may better enable parents to set their children's browsers so their children can surf only within the "dot kids" domain. My efforts in passing the "dot kids" bill were meant to supplement, not supplant, initiatives under way elsewhere by ensuring that our "dot U.S." country code reflects our public interest goals as a society in a way that hopefully can harness the best of advanced technology for kids across the country.

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